Garden Variety
by whitchry9
Summary: Written for a prompt. Sherlock breaks his hip. Of course.


**Written for this prompt: ****Thanks to some sort of case-related misadventure (getting thrown out of a window, clipped by a car, crushed under a falling piano, or whatever) Sherlock ends up with a broken hip. I'd like to see Sherlock get incredibly stroppy about all the resulting 'old man' jokes it inspires. Not least because his pride's taken a bigger beating than his leg, but because it's really hard to make a meaningfully angry exit when it takes 5 minutes and a second pair of hands to get out of your chair first.**

* * *

Sherlock scowled from the bed.

"Stupidest thing I've ever broken," he grumbled.

"Are you including the time you broke the bone in your hand that caused you to have a cast up past your elbow?"

"Yes."

John hummed. "Well, this is what happens when you miss dumpsters. And don't land on criminals."

Sherlock hissed at him. Or rather, hissed in pain when he moved, but it conveniently worked with John's comment.

"It's not my fault he moved the dumpster."

"And why couldn't you land on him then?"

Sherlock only glared.

"To be honest, I'm surprised you haven't broken a hip before, what with all the things you have broken."

"I don't break things that often," Sherlock protested.

John raised his eyebrows. He held up a hand and began ticking fingers off as he spoke.

"Scaphoid. Tibia and fibula. Radius. Collar bone. Multiple ribs. Need I go on?" he asked Sherlock, who only scowled at him even more.

"Fine. Stop rubbing it in. It's hardly my fault though."

"Partially. It's not like you drink enough milk. Bones are probably brittle," he muttered. "And did I mention the stupidly jumping off things?"

Thankfully, Sherlock was rescued from the rest of John's rant by the doctor.

"Am I interrupting something?" he asked, knowing full well he was.

"Not at all," Sherlock growled.

He raised an eyebrow, but didn't comment. "How are you doing Mr Holmes?" he asked.

"Fine. Completely fine. I don't even know why I'm here."

John look appalled. "Sherlock, you couldn't bloody walk. You're lucky I didn't call an ambulance. Stupid prat," he muttered.

The doctor only watched with mild amusement.

"Well, it is indeed broken, so you were right for bringing him in," he told John.

He stuck the x-ray on the light box and pointed to the bone with his pen.

"It's a Garden type II, so it should heal relatively well, just stick some pins in it. There's likely no disruption to the blood flow, but we will need to perform surgery to pin it. Have you had any other such procedures done before?"

John snorted.

"Yes," Sherlock growled, glaring at John.

He nodded. "So you know what to expect. Surgery will be in the morning. We'll take you up to the ward, make sure you're comfortable. You can stay with him if you'd like," he told John.

He nodded.

* * *

Surgery was uneventful except for a small incident afterwards, when Sherlock was still heavily drugged, and thought he would try to get out of bed on his own.

Thankfully, he tripped the alarms on the heart monitor before he could fall out of bed and break something else.

John threatened to have him restrained after that, and Sherlock didn't make any motions to try to get up on his own.

Until the second day anyway.

He was back at the flat three days later, still miserable about his lack of independence and movement.

"It'll heal fast Sherlock," John told him, trying to remain cheerful, despite being near ready to kill him.

Sherlock said nothing.

* * *

Another four days later, and Lestrade showed up with members of the Yard.

"Drugs bust!" he announced cheerfully.

Sherlock scowled. "Really? Some might think you were just coming to check up on me." He was propped up on the couch with a number of pillows, laptop within reach as well as a dozen or so books. All of which he'd rejected as being boring.

"What did Freak do this time?" Sally sniffed.

John rolled his eyes, but answered her, seeing as how Sherlock sure wasn't going to do it. "Sherlock broke his hip a few days ago and had to have surgery to pin it."

Sherlock ignored them all.

"Don't old people break that?" Anderson sneered.

Sherlock scowled at him.

John could recognize the stroppy look on his face, that 'I'm going to stomp off in a huff' look. It was rather amusing, mostly because he knew Sherlock couldn't. It would take him around five minutes just to get up from a seated position, and that was with John helping him.

He was just going to have to sit there and deal with it, however long it lasted.

Or risk toppling onto the floor.

John still wasn't sure which would occur.

But frankly, he was in the sort of mood where he'd like to sit back and wait to see which happened.

But he was a doctor, and at the end of the day, if Sherlock got a bloody nose from faceplanting into the table, he was the one who'd have to take care of it.

So he sighed, but shooed Anderson, Donovan and the rest of Lestrade's minions out, leaving Lestrade for last.

"You can just visit us without a reason, you know," John told him.

Lestrade smiled at him. "Yeah, but where would the fun be in that?"

He turned to leave. "See you next week Sherlock!" he called as he left.

Sherlock looked positively murderous. "John," he growled.

"He's kidding," John assured him. He frowned. "At least I'm pretty sure he is..."

Sherlock groaned. It was going to be a long couple of weeks.

* * *

**AN- Title is based on the fracture type, and the inevitable fact that Sherlock would not be pleased about having broken such a common bone. (Something for the commonwealth to do.)**


End file.
